City Manager Rochelle Small-Toney has been asked to resign by Mayor Edna Jackson.

Jackson asked for the resignation on Tuesday. She informed her fellow Savannah City Council members today.

The group will convene for another meeting at 10 a.m. Oct. 4 to take further action. One hour will be allowed for public comments, with this comments limited to three minutes per person.

Council members met in a specially called work session this afternoon to discuss numerous performance issues, including problems with Purchasing Department operations.

Because this afternoon's session was advertised as a work session, not a meeting, council chose to exercise an abundance of caution and not take any formal vote that might violate state Open Meetings law. A special meeting will be scheduled and duly noticed for the vote, which would be to either accept her resignation or terminate.

Council members during a financial workshop earlier this week had asked for a special meeting to discuss personnel issues in Purchasing, but as more issues surfaced during the workshop, council anticipated discussing the city manager's role, too.

One issue of concern was the city manager's suggestion that council use special purpose local option sales tax monies set aside for an arena to renovate the Civic Center. Some council members, however, are questioning whether the city's budget position for 2013 is more severe than they have been told.

Small-Toney, aware of the concerns about Purchasing, earlier today reassigned Purchasing Director Carla Byrd to an administrator position over the Entrepreneurial Center. Joy Kerkhoff, the assistant purchasing director who had been moved out of the office, has been asked to return and run Purchasing as the assistant director.

For more on this story, pick up Thursday's Savannah Morning News and come back to savannahnow.com.